This invention generally relates to catheters, and particularly intravascular catheters for use in percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) or for the delivery of stents.
In percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) procedures, a guiding catheter is advanced in the patient's vasculature until the distal tip of the guiding catheter is seated in the ostium of a desired coronary artery. A guidewire is first advanced out of the distal end of the guiding catheter into the patient's coronary artery until the distal end of the guidewire crosses a lesion to be dilated. A dilatation catheter, having an inflatable balloon on the distal portion thereof, is advanced into the patient's coronary anatomy over the previously introduced guidewire until the balloon of the dilatation catheter is properly positioned across the lesion. Once properly positioned, the dilatation balloon is inflated with inflation fluid one or more times to a predetermined size at relatively high pressures so that the stenosis is compressed against the arterial wall and the wall expanded to open up the vascular passageway. Generally, the inflated diameter of the balloon is approximately the same diameter as the native diameter of the body lumen being dilated so as to complete the dilatation but not over expand the artery wall. After the balloon is finally deflated, blood resumes through the dilated artery and the dilatation catheter and the guidewire can be removed there from.
In such angioplasty procedures, there may be restenosis of the artery, i.e., reformation of the arterial blockage, which necessitates either another angioplasty procedure, or some other method of repairing or strengthening the dilated area. To reduce the restenosis rate of angioplasty alone and to strengthen the dilated area, physicians now normally implant an intravascular prosthesis, generally called a stent, inside the artery at the site of the lesion. Stents may also be used to repair vessels having an intimal flap or dissection or to generally strengthen a weakened section of a vessel or to maintain its patency. Stents are usually delivered to a desired location within a coronary artery in a contracted condition on a balloon of a catheter which is similar in many respects to a balloon angioplasty catheter, and expanded within the patient's artery to a larger diameter by expansion of the balloon. The balloon is deflated to remove the catheter and the stent left in place within the artery at the site of the dilated lesion. For details of stents, see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,507,768 (Lau, et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,458,615 (Klemm, et al.), which are incorporated herein by reference.
An essential step in effectively performing a PTCA procedure is properly positioning the balloon catheter at a desired location within the coronary artery. To properly position the balloon at the stenosed region, the catheter must have good pushability (i.e., ability to transmit force along the length of the catheter), and good trackability and flexibility, to be readily advanceable within the tortuous anatomy of the patient's vasculature. Conventional balloon catheters for intravascular procedures, such as angioplasty and stent delivery, frequently have a relatively stiff proximal shaft section to facilitate advancement of the catheter within the patient's body lumen and a relatively flexible distal shaft section to facilitate passage through tortuous anatomy such as distal coronary and neurological arteries without damage to the vessel wall. These flexibility transitions can be achieved by a number of methods, including bonding two or more segments of different flexibility together to form the shaft. However, such transition bonds must be sufficiently strong to withstand the pulling and pushing forces on the shaft during use. One difficultly has been providing a flexibility transition which improves catheter maneuverability, yet with a sufficiently strong transition bond, especially at the transition between the distal end of the shaft inner tubular member (extending through the balloon interior) and a soft distal tip member formed of a relatively soft material to provide an atraumatic distal leading end for the catheter. If the tip pull strength is low, the soft distal tip member could tear or become detached during use, which can result in serious harm or death to the patient. Moreover, the need for high tip pull strength often competes with the desire for a low tip crossing profile, i.e., efforts to increase the strength of the bond between the soft distal tip member and the balloon and/or inner tubular member often result in an increased distal seal profile. Accordingly, it would be a significant advance to provide a catheter having an improved flexibility transition with a low profile.